National Bank Holdings Corporation

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the National Bank Holdings Corporation 2025 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Rachel, and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I will now turn the call over to Emily Gooden, Chief Accounting Officer and Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Rachel, and good morning. We will begin today's call with prepared remarks followed by a question and answer session. I would like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to statements regarding the company's strategy, loans, deposits, capital, net interest income, non-interest income, margins, allowance, taxes, and non-interest expense. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed today. These forward-looking statements are subject to risk uncertainties and other factors which are disclosed in more detail in the company's most recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements speak only as of the date of this call, and National Bank Holdings Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements. In addition, the call today will reference certain non-GAAP measures, which National Bank Holdings Corporation believes provides useful information for investors. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures are provided in the news release posted on the Investor Relations section of www.nationalbankholdings.com. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over and introduce National Bank Holdings Corporation's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Tim Laney.

Well, thank you, Emily. Good morning, and thank you for joining us as we discuss National Bank Holdings' fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial performance. I'm joined by John Steinmetz, our Executive Vice Chair and Executive Managing Director of Strategic Initiatives, our President, Aldous Burkhans, John Finn, our Chief Enterprise Technology Officer, and of course, our Chief Financial Officer, Nicole VanDennebilt. I'll begin this morning by extending a very warm welcome to our new VISTA teammates who joined the NBH family earlier this month. Turning to the fourth quarter and full year 2025, while the fourth quarter was noisy, we ended the year having grown tangible book per share by 10%, and we grew our CET1 capital ratio to 14.89%. I'm pleased with our swift closure of the Vista Bank acquisition and believed our combined organization will produce powerful results, results that Nicole will guide us through when she presents. It was a noisy fourth quarter with one-time acquisition costs, the strategic sale of securities, and a move to put any lingering problem loans behind us. Our goal was to enter 2026 with a clean slate and with a focus on profitable growth. I'll touch on 2Unify later in the call, but share for now that we're pleased to have completed phase one of the 2Unify build, and we're joined by John Finn, who co-leads 2Unify, and he'll cover our progress today. in detail in just a bit. Before I hand off to Nicole, I also want to compliment our bankers on their deposit and loan pricing discipline, which led us to close out the year with a net interest income margin of 3.97%. I believe we are set up for a beautiful 2026. Nicole?

Thank you, Tim. Good morning. Today, I'll review the fourth quarter full year 2025 financial highlights and provide guidance for 2026. Our guidance reflects the combined organization and consistent with past practice excludes the impact of any future Fed rate decision. In 2025, we executed on key strategic priorities. We announced and have now closed the VISTA acquisition within four months, grew tangible book value by 10%, and delivered a full-year net interest margin of 3.94%. Fourth quarter's results were impacted by elevated provision expense and one-time items including $4.1 million in after-tax acquisition costs and a $2.6 million after-tax loss on the strategic sale of investment securities to remain below $10 billion in assets at year-end. As a reminder, this action will preserve approximately $10 million in interchange income for one more year. Excluding one-time items, fourth quarter net income totaled $22.7 million, or 60 cents of earnings per diluted share. As Tim shared, we addressed a specific set of problem loans during the quarter. This resulted in $9.1 million of provision expense related to charge-offs and specific reserves. For the full year 2025, on an adjusted basis, net income totaled $117.6 million, or $3.06 of earnings per diluted share. Return on tangible assets was 1.3%, and return on tangible common equity was 12.2%. During 2025, we maintained a top quartile full year net interest margin of 3.94%, generated $1.6 billion of new loan origination, executed share buybacks, and added to our robust capital base. We are pleased to have added a number of experienced bankers to our team through the VISTA acquisition. We kick off the year with a combined loan portfolio of approximately $9.4 billion and are projecting 2026 loan growth to be approximately 10%. At acquisition closing, we added approximately $2.4 billion of earning assets from VISTA to our balance sheet. As we optimize the total cash and investment portfolio mix, we project the combined bank to generate earning asset growth of 7% to 10% during 2026. Our goal is to hold approximately 15% of total assets in cash and investment and maintain a loan-to-deposit ratio of approximately 90%. Fully taxable equivalent net interest margin for the fourth quarter was 3.89% and was impacted by variable rate loans repricing well ahead of Fed rate cuts. However, we cut deposit rates in tandem with the Fed, creating a lag effect in our cost of deposits. Most of this has now worked its way through our balance sheet, and December's margin returned to a strong 3.97%. Similarly, Vista's December margin was 4%. As a result, we project 2026 fully taxable equivalent net interest margin to remain right around 4%, excluding the impact of future rate moves. Turning to credits, Our non-performing asset ratio improved 11 basis points during 2025 to end the year at a low 36 basis points of total loans. The criticized loan ratio improved 73 basis points during the year. Net charge-offs were 34 basis points of loans for the year, and the allowance to total loans ratio ended the year at 1.18%, consistent with the prior quarter. We continue to hold $16.8 million of marks against our acquired loan portfolio as of December 31st, providing an additional 23 basis points of loan loss coverage if applied across the MBH Legacy Loan Book. We will be adding marks from VISTA's loans during the first quarter of this year. We project the provision expense in 2026 to cover net charge-offs and new loan growth at a rate consistent with the current 1.2% allowance to total loans ratio. Fourth quarter non-interest income was $14.4 million and included $3.3 million in pre-tax securities losses. For 2026, we project total non-interest income to be in the range of $75 to $80 million. Fourth quarter non-interest expense totaled $72.4 million including $5.4 million of acquisition costs. Also included in the fourth quarter's expense were investments made in bankers in our resort markets. Full-year non-interest expense was $265 million, including $7.2 million in acquisition costs and $22 million related to 2 Unified. For 2026, we project non-interest expense of $320 to $330 million, reflecting a full year of VISTA expenses. We project expenses during the first half of the year in the range of $165 to $170 million. This means lower expenses in the back half of the year, reflecting cost savings from operational efficiencies generated by the combined organization following the completion of system integration. During 2026, we expect to incur one-time expenses associated with the acquisition and rebranding. In addition, we may recognize Cecil Day One provision expense, depending on our final purchase accounting approach. As Tim shared, we are pleased to have completed the initial phase of 2Unify in 2025 with the launch of our fully automated SBA loan offering last quarter. With the core technology infrastructure now in place, we expect a substantial reduction in capital expenditures for 2Unify in 2026. This shift positions us to begin realizing operating leverage from the platform. For 2026, we expect $2 to $4 million in 2Unify revenue contributions, which is included in my fee income guidance. Importantly, We expect to maintain flat year-over-year two-unified expense, even with 2026 reflecting a full year of capitalized asset depreciation, which is approximately half of two-unified 2026 expense. This means significantly lower cash spend in 2026. Turning to income taxes, the 2025 effective tax rate was 18%. With the integration of VISTA and the resulting shift in the mix of taxable versus non-taxable income, we expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 20% for 2026. Capital levels remain strong, and we continue to grow our excess capital. We ended the year with a TCE ratio of 11%, Tier 1 leverage ratio of 11.6%, and a strong common equity Tier 1 ratio of 14.9%. We project a 2026 share count of 45.8 million shares, reflecting the VISTA-related share issuance. On a final note, bringing this all together, we believe we are well positioned to deliver earnings in excess of $1 per share in the fourth quarter of 2026, which sets the stage for full year earnings exceeding $4 per share in 2027. With that, I'll turn the call over to John Simon.

Thank you, Nicole, and good morning. On behalf of the VISTA team, our stakeholders, and the entire NBH family, I am pleased to have successfully merged our organization with National Bank Holdings Corporation and honored to be joining you on today's call. As the newest member of National Bank Holdings, I am fired up about the future of our combined companies. We have partnered with a dynamic, high-performing team and platform, and I believe there's a tremendous potential for our combined organizations. It hasn't taken long to have my instincts confirmed that our companies are ideal partners for our shareholders and team members alike. With its strong leadership, consistent discipline around credit, and a vision to create one of the most respected and profitable financial institutions in the country, NVH has built a platform that is uniquely positions our company for strong, continued, organic, and strategic growth. As a part of the MBH family, we are excited to have the opportunity to offer expanded services, such as wealth management and trust services, an enhanced treasury management offering, added mortgage products, and a bigger balance sheet to support the growth of our valued clients. This broader product set will strengthen our relationships, deepen wallet share, and enable our exceptional bankers company-wide to better serve our clients through their financial life cycle. We are also honored that Tim and the board made the decision to adopt the VISTA name as the Go Forward brand in our diversified markets. It provides our combined teams a unified front and is a name that works well in both English and Spanish, further enforcing our commitment to taking the long view of better serving our clients in the future. With $2.7 trillion GDP, Texas is one of the fastest growing economies, larger than most countries, and consistently outperforming national averages. Texas's diversified high growth economy provides unlimited opportunities for our combined organizations. That said, I am also equally excited about the growth opportunities in the various resort markets we serve currently, such as Jackson Hole, Aspen, Vail, Telluride, and Palm Beach, Florida. Since the transaction, we have already added three presidents with over 45 years combined experience at their previous banks prior to joining MBH. These communities, once seen as primarily secondary home destinations, are now primary residents for wealthy baby boomers. This shift presents an opportunity to offer our white glove concierge private clients and wealth management services, further setting our bank apart in a very crowded industry. Additionally, I am pleased to share with you that we are already seeing early momentum in our combined pipelines, fueled by the energy of our seasoned team members and enhanced capabilities, creating a clear path to value creation through relationship-driven profits. Equally significant is the cultural fit between our two organizations. Over the past several months, the Vista Bank and MBH teams have united around a shared philosophy, putting people first, a focus on on the values of teamwork and meritocracy, all while delivering exceptional results and building long-term relationships. These values drive results and further increase shareholder value. The Legacy VISTA team has been together for nearly two decades, and my commitment remains unwavering to finance the American dream for those entrepreneurs brave enough to pursue it. We invest in our communities and we compete to win. And while striving to create the best place for our associates to call work. Having deep respect for Tim Aldis and the entire MBH team has built, we couldn't be prouder to join the MBH family. I truly believe the best is yet to come. All that said, we are confident that our contributions will enhance MBH's growth profile, strengthen its market presence, and further expand shareholder value. I'll close my remarks by thanking you for your trust and support. And now I'll hand off the call to my friend, Aldis.

All right. Thanks, John, and good morning. I'll begin by highlighting what was a strong loan production quarter. We originated $591 million in total loans, the second highest loan production quarter in our company's history. I believe that performance is a direct reflection of our franchise strength and capability of our bankers. What I'm most proud of is the composition of that production. $429 million of that came from commercial loan originations, a new record for us. This drove our commercial loan portfolio growth to nearly 8% annualized. This is high-quality, relationship-driven business that proves we are winning in our quarter markets. During the fourth quarter, we continued to see pressure on our commercial real estate loan responses. This decline was mostly driven by accelerated payoffs as clients moved toward alternative funding. private credit, REITs, and life insurance companies. As a result, we improved our non-owner-occupied CRE to capital ratio to a low 127%. And when we factor in the VISTA balance sheet, we are starting the year comfortably below the 200% threshold, which gives us meaningful runway for growth moving forward. From a credit perspective, Tim and Nicole have already walked you through the actions we took during the fourth quarter. I'll just simply add this. My expectation is that our asset quality metrics will continue their positive trends returning to top quartile performance in 2026. I'm also very pleased to be working alongside John Stymonds as we expand our footprint in Texas and key to Zuka markets. And together, we expect to deliver our 2026 targets driven by profitable and prudent growth. When you combine Vista merger with our planned organic growth across all markets and recognize that we have reached our turning point for 2Unify. This stage is set for a very compelling 2026. With that, I will turn it back to Tim.

Thank you, Aldous. I'll share a few thoughts on 2Unify before handing off to John Fenn. First, I want to congratulate the 2Unify team on completing the Phase 1 bill. Second, make no mistake, during 2026, There will be an intense focus on new client activation and growing revenue. And finally, our goal is before year-end to have entered into a partnership that will meaningfully reduce NBH's 2Unify investment run rate. With that said, I'll turn the call over to John Finn. John? Thank you, Tim.

Today, I'm pleased to share more about the journey of 2Unify as we unlock the future of small business banking. Last quarter, we reached a significant milestone with the launch of our SBA working capital line, integrated seamlessly into our platform alongside our innovative business suite deposit account. This achievement is a key moment in phase one of our multi-year strategy. Imagine a world where a small business owner can log in once and see their entire financial landscape, accounts, cash balances, and lending options, all in one unified view. We are revolutionizing the client experience, well beyond traditional online banking, creating a seamless platform that helps a small business owner manage financial products and services across multiple banks and fintechs. With our integrated digital passport, we have transformed the application and onboarding process. Clients can provide their information once and eliminate the need to reiterate for additional products, whether opening an interest-bearing account or applying for a loan. Our innovative passport will ultimately enable business owners to effectively shop for financial services across a broad set of financial service providers. Now that our foundational infrastructure is in place, we are shifting gears from constructing systems to activating services. We're launching with two essential capabilities that small business owners need, beginning with a convenient access to SBA working capital loans as well as an automated nightly sweep that earns interest on excess deposits, which is functionality typically reserved for larger mid-market clients. Our custom middleware and microservices architectures enables us to deliver advanced features like real-time event notifications and tailored communications. Clients receive faster decisions with clear and concise updates, saving time and reducing stress for business owners. Our vision has always been clear, to build an integrated and seamless technology platform, not just another digital bank. Operating with a full-service banking charter, our scalable and secure architecture is supported by industry leaders like Finzac, Savannah, Visa, and Marketo. This ensures we have the best tools at our disposal to serve our clients effectively. Leveraging our technology with Snowflake and Microsoft Azure positions us to enable enterprise-grade data insights in upcoming releases. Our data architecture will support AI-driven, customizable datasets, enabling QUnify to provide valuable cash flow insights and proactive product recommendations based on clients' activity. This architecture also creates opportunities to develop new insights-based products and analytics-enabled services based on aggregated, anonymized data alongside deeper client analytics. As Tim has shared, we are optimistic about the formation of a partnership in 2026 that will accelerate our distribution and scale. Our full-service banking charter provides the partner with access to a tech-forward platform, including the ability to offer FDIC and shared deposit solutions nationwide. As we move forward beyond phase one, our investment in 2Unify will become more targeted with a step down in our capital expenditure run rate as the build phase gives way to more efficient operating profile. Importantly, we're scaling 2Unify deliberately. We will onboard clients responsibly and optimize our controls, which we believe will translate into quality conversions and more durable relationships over time. We are prioritizing a high-quality onboarding experience with robust fraud mitigation because, as you know, building trust is foundational to long-term value creation. With a more efficient cost profile and a growing set of capabilities, we remain committed to building 2Unify into a marketplace that we believe will compound value for small business owners and our shareholders alike. I appreciate the opportunity to provide this update on 2 Unify. I will now turn it back to Tim.

All right. Well, thank you, John. We covered a lot of ground this morning. So, Rachel, I'll go ahead and ask you to open up the call for questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, please press star 1 to ask a question. And our first question comes from Jeff Rulis with DA Davidson.

Good morning, Jeff.

Thanks. Good morning. Nicole, that was a whirlwind of updates. If I could just rattle through a couple just to confirm. 10% loan growth in 26 off the combined $9.4 billion balance, a margin for the full year near 4%, earnings over $1 in the fourth quarter and over $4 in 27. Is that right?

That is correct.

Okay. And on the unified front, I think you said $2 to $4 million in revenue this year. What was the cost again for 26?

Yes, so that's correct, 2 to 4 million of to unify revenue production for 2026. And we will be holding to unify expense flat in 2026, consistent with 2025, which was 22 million.

Got it. Thanks for that. And then, you know, it sounds like the partnership developing to sort of reduce those investment costs. I guess the leverage of the model in the 27 is a little bit TBD, but I guess the focus is as you scale it up, that's more of a break-even type climate in 27. I know that all of this is developing, but trying to get a sense for what the 27 economics look like.

Look, I think what we should share with you is that right now we are incredibly focused on phase one product activation with clients and driving revenue and really testing the market with those services. Number two, as I shared, we are very focused on working to establish a partnership that, frankly, could have the effect amongst other options of moving this off the NBH financials altogether, where we would remain a meaningful investor as shareholders, but it would be treated in a very different fashion financially. But I'll come back to the first point, which is our focus today is on client activation and scaling this business. And we'll come back to you You know, it's just too early to come back to you with any kind of definitive targets on 27. Yep.

No, that's helpful, Tim, just the range of options, including moving off the financials of the bank entirely. We'll stay tuned. Maybe just to pivot onto the credit side, the three loans that made up the bulk of the net charge offs. Could you kind of identify that sort of category and why that group, you know, any systemic sounds as if you expect credit metrics to further improve in 26, just trying to get a sense for what was charged off? Thanks.

If you'll recall, at the beginning of 25, we literally were dealing with less than a handful of relationships that had emerged as problems. We really were in the belief that over the course of 25, they would work their way through the judicial process, and we would have them resolved. And that simply wasn't the case. The decision, we believe, prudent decision was to address these as aggressively as we could in 25 and have a clean runway for 26. We're just not believers in letting problems like this linger. And the board and I felt like this was the correct and prudent action to take, even though it obviously was painful to take here in the fourth quarter of last year. But it feels good, very good to put it behind us.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. And we'll take our next question from Kelly Moda with KBW.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe to kick it off with growth, I know, you know, we talked about 2025 year being working through some credits and impacted by some payoffs and refinancing. It sounds like the outlook for 26 is really strong in part with your VISTA partnership that you just brought on. As you look to, I think it was 10% loan growth. Can you speak to the drivers of that growth, if that's significantly Texas and other markets where you're seeing opportunities just given the acceleration from, you know, what we've seen the past several quarters? Thank you.

Yeah. Hey, Kelly. This is all this. I'll kick off and then I'll have Don chime in. But, yeah, it's a combination of all the markets and certainly the continuation of the strong production we saw in the fourth quarter. As I mentioned, it was our second highest loan production quarter for the NBA standalone basis. In our company's history, we did really well on originating commercial loans. If you'd like to look at the CNI in the table, that grew north of 10% annualized. So we do see a very good momentum going into this year, and certainly adding markets like Texas and the expertise and teammates that we are adding through list acquisition is great. And, John, maybe you can add on that front as well as touch on the resort markets.

Sure. Thanks, Elvis. And, yeah, Kelly, we're really excited about the future growth potential, not only in Texas but the resort markets and all the markets, candidly. I'm looking forward to getting to know the team members throughout all of the NBH markets. And we believe in Texas that this platform that was built at NBH provides us not only the balance sheet that we need to continue to grow with our valued clients, but support our exceptional bankers. And to Aldis's point, we also have always believed that NBH has an incredible opportunity in the resort markets. Resort markets that, again, were once seen as second homes but are now becoming primary residents in places where people want to have their local bank. And I hope at this time next quarter you'll see some performance-driven metrics and increased shareholder value around that. But the platform that we have at MDH as a team is going to provide not only, you know, allow us to support the continued – 20-plus percent gainer on deposits and loan growth that we've historically had, but it's also going to allow us to overcome a lot of the lack of fee income, which Vista Bank has historically struggled with.

Got it. That's really helpful. Maybe bouncing to a question on the margin, it was down this quarter a bit more than I had expected. With the low yields, were there any interest reversals given what you had with credit? And, you know, I appreciate the guy in the mid-390s, too, is X rate cuts, but just if you could refresh us on, clearly, I think there's some so how we should be thinking through that. Thanks.

Yeah, Kelly, good morning. This is Nicole. Yeah, I'll just reiterate. So our December margin did come in at a strong 3.97%. We have managed, in our view, very well through 75 basis points of rate cuts in 2025. We experienced or we drove nine basis points of margin expansion even with those rate cuts this year. There wasn't any interest reversals in the fourth quarter. The loans we worked through were already on non-accrual. But I will just reiterate, we've done a nice job with our deposit pricing. For prior rate cuts, we cut our deposit rates ahead of the Fed. This time we held and we waited until we knew exactly what the Fed was going to do, and so that did cause that lag and drag effect, but we have overcome that and finished the year with a strong margin of 3.97%.

Great. Thank you. Last one, if I could slip in just one more. On the two unified guide, the expense guide, the flat at $22 million, I just wanted to because you alluded to a potential partnership that could change the economics here, that that didn't bake in any, you know, potential impacts of maybe offloading some of those expenses, one. And then, two, with the flat, you know, I imagine getting increasing the user base is an important part of driving those revenues higher. So I'm surprised it's flat. So I guess if you could kind of speak to how you guys are thinking about that line item, given that we're not really seeing a change from last year.

Yeah, I appreciate you asking that question. I think it's important to note we see 2026 as a turning point for 2Unify. As I shared, we are seeing operating leverage from 2025 to unify in 2026. The revenue guide is an increase from last year. The 2-4 million revenue guide, positive impact from 2025 and then holding expenses flat, it's actually very significant that we're holding expenses flat because we will have a full year of capitalized asset depreciation in 2026. And so that expense flat includes that uptick in depreciation, which is half of the 2026 expenses. And then to your to your point on the partnership. So no potential, the partnership really from a financial perspective is all upside and none of that has been included in our guidance for 2026.

Thanks for all of that. I'll step back. Appreciate you guys taking the questions.

Thank you, Kelly.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Andrew Terrell with Stevens.

Hey, good morning.

Hey, good morning.

First one, just to clarify, Nicole, on the margin, was the 397, was that spot at the end of the year or 397 for the full month of December?

397 was for the full month of December.

Okay. And then do you have the, it sounds like there was a lag here where assets repriced quite a bit quicker than deposits. Do you have where deposits, either spot or interest-bearing, I mean, either total or interest-bearing, were either in the month of December or on a spot basis at the end of the quarter?

Yeah, this is all the same. It was 182 is the spot deposit cost at the end of December for NBH. Better call now starting in Q1 or starting now. Obviously, we are incorporating all of the VISTA's deposit base as well, so it will change in Q2. But I think where you're getting at is Our SPARC margin is around 4% if you incorporate all of the benefit from deposit bleed through in December.

Yep. Yep. Got it. Okay. If I could ask just around the two Unify, specifically the partnership, if I go back to October, Tim, we talked about on the call, it sounded like you were maybe pretty close on announcing something from a partnership standpoint. It sounds like now, you know, that's still likely, but maybe delayed a bit. And I guess I'm curious what's kind of causing a delay here or if there is a delay in your mind.

You know, I may have made a mistake in sharing as much as I did at that point candidly. It perhaps even reflected too much optimism and I could kick myself for that. I believe we were further along in consummating a partnership there. But frankly, you know, when you're involving two parties, you can have different needs, expectations on either side that may not come together in the timeframe that you expected. What you need to hear from me today is that we are intensely focused on bringing the right partnership together and moving to Unify ahead. And frankly, you know, we are proud to be targeting a $4 run rate in our earnings in 27. But imagine what that looks like if we're pulling those expenses of 2Unify in all or in part off of our income statement. So we're highly motivated to see something happen there.

Yeah, got it. Thank you. And last for me, was there any – I appreciate the 2Unified guy, but was there any revenue in the fourth quarter realized? And then – Just on the buyback that you guys announced, maybe, too, if you could speak to kind of the appetite there. Thanks.

Yeah, I can touch on the two-unify revenue question. So, we did have some revenue related to two-unify in the fourth quarter, but it wasn't meaningful. And then the second part was the appetite for share buyback.

We have a strong interest in share buybacks. Fair enough. I believe you know, we literally just announced $100 million buyback authorization, and we have a, frankly, we would consider it a priority at this point.

Great. Thanks for your questions.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Brett Rabaton with Hefty Group.

Hey, good morning, everybody. I joined a little bit late, Tim, but wanted just to go back to, you know, you guys have had really strong loan originations, particularly here lately, but obviously the net growth has been limited due to payoffs. Can you talk maybe a little bit about, you know, what you've experienced or what you experienced during 4Q, you know, in terms of payoff activity and how that played out and then just, you know, your confidence for 26, if I heard correct, 10% loan growth, you know, is there a net and gross assumption there or any thoughts on, you know, confidence on payoffs diminishing relative to what you've experienced the past few quarters in particular?

Aldous did touch on, you know, what we were seeing with insurance competition, the private debt market, but let's be candid. All banks or most banks would be facing that competition. I'll tell you there were just a number of situations where the kind of structures that were being put together and the pricing related to those deals just simply did not fit within our risk management framework. And so we're more than willing to let that business move along. But I think the broader context is the full year where we entered 2025 with, frankly, a risk-off mindset, having concerns about tariffs, having concerns about where the economy would land. And I would tell you that that risk-off position that we took was somewhat pervasive throughout the year to a point where when it was time to really turn things back on, I'm proud of the team's production, but I would tell you it was being done in a very, very conservative atmosphere. We come into 26 really with you know, the combined forces of Forma, Vista, and NBH. And as we lay out these growth plans that we shared for you, all of us and John have expressed nothing but very high confidence that we will meet, if not beat them. So with that, I'll open it up. First, maybe you all just for more detail on the fourth quarter, but then in terms of of growth here in 26. John, all of us feel free to jump in on that as well.

Yeah, Brett, what I would add is looking ahead in 2026, one thing that is a bit different in addition to what Tim was mentioning in terms of, again, like transportation or trucking is a segment we definitely exited, and that was a headwind. We are where we want to be, so that's not going to be a headwind in 2026. The other thing I'll say is, and again, this is on MBH's legacy book side, but we have approximately a quarter of a billion to almost $300 million of less scheduled maturities this year than it was last year. So that's a less of a, call it headwind return that we have to overcome to, again, grow even with the same production results. So, John, anything that you'd add from Legacy Vista's side?

Sure. Well, Brett, thanks for the question. And let me say, I'm optimistic and very excited about You know, we have consistently put up 23 CAGR in loan growth without the balance sheet that MBH provides us. And so we think that this was the perfect partnership. We see tremendous opportunities in these resort markets. But I am very confident and have always believed that the reason people first matters is because the best clients follow the best bankers. And we are committed to continuing to not only augment and support our exceptional team members at VISTA and the entire MBH family, but also recruit and retain through the disruption that we see not only today but throughout Texas. This was a merger of two incredible teams, and I'm incredibly optimistic and expect to win. And with respect to a question that was asked earlier, I believe, by Jeff with DA Davidson, I want you all to know that we take great pride in our credit quality. And for, I hope, our credit team that is listening today at Vista, Legacy Vista, I'm still getting used to this, they know how much pride we take in pricing with credit quality second to none. And I have an extraordinary amount of confidence in Rick, Danny, and the credit team at MBH. We did our reverse diligence and examined NBHs, because I assure you they did theirs on us, much like a proctology exam. And I am very proud to be partnering with this excellent credit quality-minded organization, because I don't think they kick the can down the road, and I'm fired up about 26.

That's all really helpful. I'm sorry.

I was just saying as a shareholder and team member.

Yeah, okay. That's all really helpful, and I think most ambassadors are going to give you guys credit for, you know, the credit situations being truly one-off. So I don't think anybody's concerned about that. The other question I wanted to ask you, John, was just, you know, I think you're kind of known as a recruiter, and, you know, you've got this deal with MDH. but there's been significant disruption in a lot of the markets of the core operating pro forma company. Just wanted to hear, you know, if you had offers out or if there was a hiring effort pro forma or if it's too early and you're just still trying to combine everything before you maybe go too much on offense with market share opportunities related to disruption and just any thoughts on how you see that playing out.

And, Brett, I appreciate that question, and I'll tell you, this is my first public earnings call, and Tim told me not to make promises I can't keep, but I'll tell you this. We are actively recruiting, but I'll tell you we are actively retaining. Like I said, most of our team members have been together for 20 years, and I take so much joy in knowing that we have the best bankers providing these. The opportunities and the inbound calls that we're receiving, not from recruiters, but from bankers at the organizations in Texas and beyond to be a part of a culture that puts their people first is something like I've never seen. And I'm excited for my friends in Texas that announced the deal today, but I can assure you I am recruiting, and I think we all should be in this incredibly crowded industry where we all eat out of each other's dog bowl. So I think that 26 could be a really good year. if we're willing to dig in. And I'm excited about digging in with the team that we've had in the past. And more importantly, getting out and getting to know the NBH team that I have had a deep level of respect. This merger took place over five years of getting to know Tim Aldis and the entire NBH team. And if you would, Brett, just allow me to thank the team at VISTA for for their patients as we explore various opportunities. But we think this is a perfect partnership because of the way that they manage credit, much like we do.

Okay. Great. That's great, John. Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, Brad. Thank you, Brad.

Thank you. And I am showing we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Laney for his closing remarks.

I'll just simply say thank you for your time today, and if you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to reach out directly. Have a good day.

And this concludes today's conference call. If you would like to listen to the telephone replay of this call, it will be available in approximately 24 hours, and the link will be on the company's website on the Investor Relations page. Thank you very much, and have a great day. You may now disconnect.